Join Dottie Frank, Mary Alice Monroe, Patti Callahan Henry and all our Charleston friends for a drink! The Holy City welcomes you. Charleston has been recognized as the "best-mannered" city in the U.S, a claim lent credibility by the fact that it has the first established Livability Court in the country. Come by, have a cool drink, and relax as our friends welcome us to their fair city. RSVP This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

7:00 PM – 10:30 PM It’s a Party Town -Nathalie Dupree and Cynthia Graubart and their husbands, Jack Bass and Cliff Graubart Welcome SIBA to Charleston!Off-site

Booksellers, publishers, and authors are invited to a light buffet and desserts at 100 Queen Street, Charleston, SC.

Directions: Follow King Street to downtown Charleston, where it is one way. Take a right the first traffic light past Market Street, which is Queen Street, and one way. Go five houses - parking lot on left, yellow house with white wall around it is 100. Come on in!

“Help us help you and we’ll show you the money!” Club Read

First note -- There are no physical tickets to wait on as all sign up is online, and promoting the event with your code earns you $100 per ticket sold. This is a way to be viewed by your customers as the go-to for signature writer events. The possibilities to promote these unique exclusive weekends are an endless outlet for promotion & cash but this first one needs to be successful for us to go forward.

We will be hosting with Club Read Sponsor FridayReads a Blogger Contest to encourage Book Bloggers to direct ticket sales to participating stores. That promotion kicks off with a Twitter Chat on Wednesday, September 14, at 2 PM - #ClubRead – so join us if you’d like & get the details.

A Dozen Tips that could equal $1200 – What if each tip sold one ticket?

Like the authors facebook pages as well as the Club Read page. All of the author social networking info is here. And then share the Club Read page with your followers & friends.

We encourage you to sign up as a Club Read bookstore. It seems that some have found the bookseller contact daunting. Please know it is only our desire that you promote, promote, promote, just as you would any store event you were hosting (or co-hosting). So sign the contact and do your best – that is all we ask.

As soon as your store is registered as a Club Read bookstore, you'll have your code to pass along to customers. That is when you begin promoting Club Read to your customers. Also know that the code is not an absolute, there is also a bookstore list but the code is designed to single out your store as the store of choice.

Create a link on your website and in emails that links to a Club Read book sales promotion on your website as well as the Club Read registration form.

Promote this even if you don't think you are close enough to Virginia. Your customers may want to travel for an event like this. Don't make that decision for them. You'll still get $100 per ticket sold using your store code, whether it is four or forty.

Have your store's book club staff person get four other people to go with him/her and their own registration to Club Read could be paid for by the store.

If you are afraid that the price of $500 is too steep for your customers, you are more than welcome to offer it for $400 and forgo your own profit from the program. You can use Club Read as a goodwill and unique event. (Just let us know since the program requires payment of $500.) You can promise those customers $100 back (how about in store credit?) after the event.

The store that sells the most tickets reaps the benefit of the on-site sales.

How many books do you need to sell to make $100? You only need to sell one Club Read registration. And if customers see this as a personal invitation to a weekend with the staff of their favorite bookstore to meet some great authors, it’s priceless!

Frontline Bookseller from The Book Worm Bookstore Captures Scholarship!

Frontline bookseller Britaini Blackmon has won the Janet Bollum Frontline Bookseller SIBA Scholarship. Britaini will be attending #SIBA11 with her boss, Susan Smelser. Nominated by Susan of The Book Worm Bookstore in Powder Springs, GA, Britaini is delighted to be making her first trip to #SIBA, and we welcome her. Britaini will enjoy two nights room & tax and an All Pass compliments of SIBA in honor of a wonderful bookseller that continues to serve SIBA in so many ways – Janet Bollum!.

How Tweet it is to win a Free Room Night @ #SIBA11

Congratulations to @hortonsbooks of Horton’s Books & Gifts will enjoy a free night on SIBA @ #SIBA11 for their simple tweet. We had nearly 40 folks participate in the Twitter Contest.

SIBA Installs New Directors at #SIBA11

Jeff McCord, Bound to be Read Books:

Trained in the Carver Method under which SIBA is governed and currently serving on the board of the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, Jeff McCord opened Bound to Be Read Books on September 16, 2005, to be a store that is attentive and responsive to the needs of the neighborhoods it serves. More than just another cluttered and dusty used book store, Bound To Be Read Books is a vibrant and truly community-oriented store that offers events like environmental seminars, philosophy classes, discussion groups, book signings and readings by local and national authors and regular children's story times. Small book clubs and groups find a welcoming atmosphere and customers a comfortable place to meet friends and neighbors.

Jeff is active in his community, having served with the Capitol Area Kiwanis Club (President, 2 yrs); Georgia District of Kiwanis (Lt. Governor); Grant Park Neighborhood Association (Vice President); Clayton Country Headstart (Board Member); Jones Memorial Methodist Church (Chair of Administrative Council and various committees);Board of East Atlanta Farmers Market.

Jeff has been a SIBA member since before his store opened, He attends the trade show regularly, distributes the SIBA Holiday Catalog and participates in Authors Round the South consumer website. He currently serves on the board of the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance and is trained in the Carver Method under which SIBA is governed.

Tom Lowenburg, Octavia Books:

Tom Lowenburg has co-owned and operated Octavia Books since founding the New Orleans-based bookstore with Judith Lafitte in 2000, a year when only a handful of independent bookstores dared to open in the U.S. A member of SIBA for over ten years, he has served on the boards of the New Orleans Gulf South Booksellers Association (NOGSBA) and the Mid-South Booksellers Association, and on SIBA’s advisory committee. He was honored as “Bookseller of the Year” by NOGSBA. He testified before the Louisiana legislature in 2010, successfully defeating a censorship bill that had already passed in the state Senate, and in 2011 in support of an E-Fairness bill that passed the Louisiana House. He has also been active in Stay Local New Orleans, working to promote local economy. Octavia Books, the first bookstore in New Orleans to re-open following Hurricane Katrina, celebrated its 10th Anniversary last year with Lowenburg announcing that his store would be underwriting “The Reading Life,” a new weekly program on local public radio.

Okra Picks Extended – Let’s sell some books!

The new batch of Okra is here and we are going to be seeing a lot of it around as SIBA launches a new program to help you sell more books. Be sure and come by the SIBA Booth at the trade show to pick up your free display case & your Okra Pick Cards. SIBA is going to print and distribute these cards to member stores seasonally with a batch of Okra Picks for your customers.

The vertical display piece was chosen with your valuable space needs in mind. It will fit right up next to the check out and hold hundreds of Okra Pick cards that directs your customers to the first chapter of the book provided at the Okra Picks Scribd account. As these books are our unique picks we will be the ones with the books in stock and available to our customers. See sample cards here. See all of the seasons Okra Picks here. And below are the Picks that we will be creating full color Okra Pick cards for so prep for the demand:

September 2011Drifting Into Darien: A Personal and Natural History of the Altamaha River by Janisse Ray, University of Georgia PressHeart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans by Kadir Nelson, Balzer & BrayThe Hum and the Shiver by Alex Bledsoe, Tor Books

October 2011Lions of the West by Robert Morgan, Shannon Ravenel BooksCold Glory by Kent Anderson, ForgeThe Happy Table of Eugene Walker: Southern Spirits in Food and Drink edited by Don Goodman and Thomas Head, University of North Carolina Press

November 2011The Chamomile: A Novel of Revolutionary America by Susan Craft, Ingalls Publishing Group

Southern indie booksellers are getting hitched. Most are excited about all of the potential provided by a largely free internet (bloggers, affiliate programs, Twitter, Facebook, Authors 'Round the South & more), but are most excited when face to face with a reader. SIBA is finding new ways to be relevant to the industry as a whole (selling books for member stores, directing thousands of readers to specific books while promoting her bookstores, pulling together Club Read & more); always looking to engage our collective klout. SIBA is actively inviting book bloggers, booksellers, publishers, and other industry friends to the show with innovative new programming while keeping bookseller favorites.

The First 180 Days Party is modeled on the popular Winter Institute’s Author Reception. The twist is these are books that have been published in the first half of this year. Come by and thank the authors that have made this year for your store.

The Writers Block Auction Wedding is going to be so much fun. Congrats to Sara & Brandon and the authors are game. Come enjoy this SIBA Book Award Celebration and bring your money so you can bid to take an author to dinner in Shem Creek.

Signed Tinkers for Your Customers & Relief to Irene-Stricken Bookseller

This just in from Gee Gee Rosell

Just before Irene blew in, Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Harding vacationed here! I ordered in several cases of his book "Tinkers" and he graciously signed them. I have no doubt I would have sold them to our Fall customers, but now there are none. I am here keeping company with several cases of signed "Tinkers" and would love to offer them, at my cost (a standard 40% discount) plus whatever it costs to ship them. to other indie stores for their Fall and Christmas shoppers. I’m happy to sell them individually or in whatever quantity stores want. Interested booksellers should contact Gee Gee Rosell directly at Buxton Village Books, Inc. in Buxton, NC – Phone is 252-995-4240 and email is This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.